Oona Tamsyn King, Baroness King of Bow is a Labour politician and former Chief
diversity officer of Channel 4. She had previously served as a Labour Party
Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow from 1997 until 2005, when she
was defeated by George Galloway, the Respect candidate.
Early life King, who is mixed race, was born in
Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, to Preston King, an African-American
academic and his wife, Murreil Hazel, a Jewish social justice activist. She is
the niece of the medical doctor Miriam Stoppard, while her cousin is the actor
Ed Stoppard. On her father's side, she comes from a line of civil rights
activists and successful entrepreneurs. Her paternal grandfather, the civil
rights activist, Clennon Washington King, Sr. fathered seven sons. C.B.
King, a pioneering civil rights attorney, is her uncle.
King was educated at Haverstock Comprehensive Secondary School on
Crogsland Road in Chalk Farm, London, and was a contemporary of fellow Labour
politicians David Miliband and his younger brother Ed. It was at Haverstock
that she first showed political ambition, telling her careers teacher
she wanted to become Prime Minister. Librarian work was suggested instead. At
the beginning of her period as an undergraduate at University of York she
was briefly a member of the Socialist Workers Party During her second year she
gained a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley and graduated
with a first class honours Politics degree in 1990.
Political career Before becoming an MP, King was on the
European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, and worked
as a political assistant to Glyn Ford MEP, the Labour Party Leader in the
European Parliament, and later Glenys Kinnock MEP. From 1995–97, she was a
political organiser for the GMB Southern Region.
She was selected to represent the seat of Bethnal Green and Bow early in 1997.
Peter Shore had announced his retirement early but faction fighting in the
Constituency Labour Party led to party headquarters delaying the selection and
imposing its own shortlist; some leading competitors from the local Bangladeshi
community were not included. = Parliamentary career=
By winning the seat in 1997, King became only the second black woman to be
elected as Member of Parliament, the first being Diane Abbott. She was
selected as one of "100 Great Black Britons" for this achievement. In her
"truly first-class maiden speech", King described the racial abuse she and her
family had suffered as a child. She referred to herself as "multi-ethnic",
representing "a truly multicultural constituency where hardship and
deprivation gave birth to Britain's greatest social reforms." She described
William Beveridge and Clement Attlee, as "surrounded by an East End infant
mortality rate of 55 per cent" and said this led to social reforms including the
NHS. She emphasised a need for coherence in the strategy for eradicating poverty
and the role of education in its elimination.
King was also a passionate advocate of international aid and human rights. She
served on the international development select committee, and she served as the
Vice-Chair of the All-Parliamentary Group on Bangladesh. She was selected to
second the Queen's Speech debate in November 2002, where she also discussed
her views on genocide and a trip to Rwanda. She served as the Parliamentary
Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the
Minister for e-commerce. King supported the 2003 invasion of
Iraq, which was controversial for the constituency's large Muslim population.
This support was used against her in the election campaign of Respect's George
Galloway who later defeated her in the 2005 general election. The campaign for
the seat contained strong comments from both candidates.
She subsequently changed her views, after viewing the poor handling of
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath by the United States:
it shows that America has no grasp whatever on the activity needed to
rebuild a destroyed city. And if they can't do that in their own country, then
it's obvious why they can't do it in Iraq. So ... I regret that we went to
war with a country that has shown itself to be incapable of the very basic
actions required to deal with post-conflict reconstruction.
She however maintained that she does not regret voting for the war in Iraq, "I
could never have voted against getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He was
responsible for the deaths of one million people."
= 2005 general election= Bethnal Green and Bow with its almost
45,000 Muslims was Galloway's best chance to defeat Labour in what became a
"bitter single issue campaign." King described the contest as "one of the
dirtiest ..we have ever seen in British politics" and complained of "quite
disturbing" anti-semitic and racial abuse. She was the putative target of
vegetable and egg throwers during a memorial service commemorating the
Second World War bombing of a block of flats with predominantly Jewish victims.
King claimed it was a deliberate part of Respect's campaign, but Galloway's
representative Ron McKay denied any accusation of racial abuse.
Both candidates were given police protection, King after her tyres were
slashed and Galloway after a death threat. King lost the seat by 823 votes,
a 26.2% swing from King to Galloway. King said that whilst the war had been a
major issue, false claims in the Bangladeshi press that she wanted to get
rid of halal meat had played a part. = 2005–2009=
King had said that she would remain in Bethnal Green & Bow with her
constituency office funded from the GMB trade union, attempting to act as an
unofficial MP. However, later in 2005, she began a career in the media, saying
"I wanted to be an MP all my life, and when it didn't work, I thought, well
then, I'll just have to go down a different path."
In 2007, King published her autobiography The Oona King Diaries:
House Music. In 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed her to act as his
Senior Policy Adviser on Equalities and Diversity and Faith.
In January 2009, King was appointed head of diversity at Channel 4. She continues
to live in Mile End, in a converted pub. = 2010 London mayoral campaign=
In 2010, King unsuccessfully challenged Ken Livingstone for the Labour
nomination in the 2012 election for Mayor of London. King's first campaign
speech, at Haverstock school, focused on "engagement with young people" as a way
of reducing knife crime and helping them achieve their potential. In June 2010,
she was shortlisted and in an interview with The Independent emphasised both her
experience of "pushing and pulling the levers of power" i.e. her experience of
negotiating with top ministers and also her willingness to work with political
opponents. Her opponent, Ken Livingstone, accused her of using
inappropriate methods of obtaining email addresses of Labour Party supporters;
King denied the allegation. King had the backing of Neil Kinnock, Ben Bradshaw,
and Alan Johnson. On 24 September 2010, Livingstone won the nomination.
Peerage On 26 January 2011, King was created a
life peer as Baroness King of Bow, of Bow in the London Borough of Tower
Hamlets. She was introduced in the House of Lords on 31 January 2011, where she
sits on the Labour benches. When her appointment was announced in November
2010, she resigned as a constituency representative to the Labour National
Executive Committee, to which she had recently been elected, before attending
her first meeting. Upon taking her seat in the Lords, she stood down from her
Diversity Officer role with Channel 4. In 2012, she was elected to the Progress
strategy board as a parliamentarian. Personal life
In 1994, King married Italian Tiberio Santomarco, while working for an MEP in
Brussels. The couple have three adopted children, as well as a fourth child born
to a surrogate mother in 2013. She is fluent in Italian and French.
Media work King has made appearances on television
shows such as This Week, The Daily Politics, The All Star Talent Show and
Have I Got News For You. She hosted a BBC Two documentary on Martin Luther
King and the deep South entitled American Prophet.
In January 2013, she appeared on the skating show Dancing On Ice, being voted
off 20 January. References
External links Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in
Parliament by Ooona King Ask Aristotle – Oona King The Guardian
Politics Oona King MP TheyWorkForYou.com
Oona King BBC News, 21 April 2006 – Essay for BBC One's This Week
Oona King 100 Great Black Britons Oona King "Israel can halt this now",
The Guardian, 12 June 2003 Shock win for Galloway in London BBC
News, 6 May 2005 Post-election Oona King interview,
audio, Today, BBC Radio 4, 11 May 2005 "The Exile And His Daughter – Preston
King, scholar, author, draft evader, 40 years in waiting for a pardon", Essence
Magazine, February 2001 "Q: Did anti-semitism cost you the
election? A: Definitely. There was Iraq, of course, but it was particularly being
Jewish", Emma Brockes talks to former Labour MP Oona King, The Guardian, 12
September 2005. BBC Radio 4 programme about King's
family's fight for civil rights in the US